Friday, March 29, 2024

November 2018

Poems by John Hennessy

AFTER ALEXANDRIA What an agony not to wake up next to you. Not to have fallen asleep with your head on my chest. I made the bed quickly, as you did every day, sheets that still smell of your hair and skin. Your pillows, one that you took with you, take with you everywhere, sandalwood...

Poems by Jack Donahue

The Removal of Sin in a World Without Sin Turning once again toward the sea, strong arms move my head to look at the land instead, a desert landscape beige, bland sand the monotonous menu for my eyes that have seen it all before. Defiant, I turn to feast on the wild water, currents pushing the shore...
THE MAGIC OF STILLNESS AND THE CHAOTIC Some people, lost souls, caught in the absurdity of noise, create magical stillness out of the chaotic outwitting comprehension. Other lost souls, caught in the absurdity of silence, create the chaotic out of magical stillness sidestepping incomprehension. I, confused by both noise and silence, adoring absurdity yet not knowing which is more magical or comprehensible, stillness or...
On The Vasettha Sutta Two Brahmins brought the Blessed One a dispute. One argued, We were born pure into this caste. The second claimed, Class is by virtue of actions. Buddha, who often stayed silent, untouchable, above such fray, discoursed in no uncertain terms: Grasses or trees are distinct from birth, not man. Still twenty-five hundred...

Poems by Gopal Lahiri

MOTHER COURAGE I was not strong, rather meek and shy, Saw my mother catching wind between palms, Trying to hold me while lighting the dusk lamp, The mellow sun greeted her resilience, her bravery, Stroking at the edge of her Bengal cotton sari, Not knew, the reason of sadness flooding her body. Her voice then dropped to a...
My Guest There is nothing more important than you, my guest I will delay my sickness until you leave And I will cover my sadness with a big smile I will give my last bread to you and my hungry kids Don’t worry— I will fill my stomach with water Come on in… My house is full...

Poems by Claudine Nash

I PASS YOU AN EMPTY SKY I just love when I pass you an empty sky and you spin it then hand me back a fistful of stars. ENTANGLEMENT 1 You reach through this spiral of settling light and touch a drifting, mislaid piece of dust. You lift it and somewhere else in time and space, something in me rises. ENTANGLEMENT 2 On this ground I plant a seed. I lay by this mound of peat moss and...
EMILY AS THE FIELD IS STILL A FIELD Even if Emily is naked in the field the worth of that dirt is determined by the season. Though that has never stopped me from referring to her as the bloom, as the crop, as the reason why all of Ohio’s two-lane highways have been built. I know...
THE TRANSLATOR You once contributed to a study. You said what you took seemed superior to what you left behind. You got the letter but never joined the team. You put on a different costume, but you’re always a shaman. You said you would storm the studio and seize the local reality from the projectors. You...
True Self Nameless stands with his back to the wall. Desperate grappling of an unsettled mind. Piercing screams emitting from some lost place. Unsure of any fate, real or imagined. Looking past a vague blackness, slowly filling an empty jar on the shelf. Cardboard dreams crumbling, while paint peels off in layers of obscurity. A disease of doubt...

Poems by Akila G

Checkmate This is how it rains. A cloudburst when you laugh and compete with the spattering droplets and I harvest a silence in a pair of pretentious shades tears have long muted consoled and labelled. Everything has a cure but no one knows or recalls what heals first pain or time? We possess disintegrated memories petals, showers, ice pellets, leaves, dust, debris, gust, silence scattered in...
SCAR The love byte is a frozen ripple seeking the other shore just as the curve seeks the circle, the curly hair seeks the halo encircling the head. May be because raw effort is prettier than the outcome, sun fondles the dark underbelly of the forest, floods it with light only for darkness to regrow like waiting. Humans remain banks with the turbulence...